


The Grand Design

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Litha to Lammas [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, Established Relationship, Knights of Walpurgis, M/M, Minor Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-27 08:59:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19787605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Harry is struggling between his desire for love and his desire to fulfill his duty, to find a way to stay and a way to return to his own time. Tom Riddle’s attempts to seduce him permanently are not helping.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to both “Earning His Notice” and “Pride and Power”; read those first, or you’ll be lost. This is part of my “From Litha to Lammas” series of fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August, and will probably have three parts.

****“You never did tell me what that design of two snakes meant that you received in the post.”

Harry sighed and sat back from the groaning table in Dorea’s dining room. She was his great-aunt really, but she was convinced that she was his grandmother, due to the machinations of people in this time. She sat now with a glass of red wine in her hand, her eyes tracing the lines of his face in quiet wonder.

The excellent meal he’d just finished couldn’t bury the feeling of guilt that squirmed in his stomach. Harry swallowed and said, “My friend made it as a prank. He threatened to tattoo it on me with his wand.”

Dorea laughed lightly, shaking her head. She had long, sleek black hair that reminded Harry of the way Sirius’s might have come to look if he lived long enough, and eyes that Harry had never seen dull or bored. “You do have extraordinary friends, Harry. I wouldn’t have thought anyone would create a design that intricate as a prank.”

No, Tom hadn’t. But Harry wasn’t about to tell his “family” about Tom, or tell him about them in any detail, either. Tom did know that an Auror at the Ministry had introduced Harry to the Potters in the firm belief that Harry was their illegitimate grandson, or great-nephew, in the case of Fleamont and Euphemia.

His _real_ grandparents. Harry’s head and heart spent far too much time spinning dizzily at the fact that he got to see them argue and laugh and invent potions in this time period.

These people he’d never known, wanted to know, shouldn’t have known. The time period he should never have visited.

“Harry, darling. What’s wrong? Are you still worried that we’re suddenly going to turn blood purist on you? I promise, it will never happen.”

Dorea reached out across the table to him, her eyes troubled. Harry captured her hand and lifted it to his lips to kiss it, the way he’d seen Charlus do more than once. “I don’t think that, Grandmother.” The word made his throat ache. “It’s just—there are things that I’m still trying to deal with. My life changed so suddenly.”

“Ah, yes, well, I can understand that. But perhaps you can clarify my curiosity about something. Did you really intend to never approach the Potter family?”

Harry blinked. His cover story was that he was the son of a Muggle woman Dorea and Charlus’s son Tristan had seduced, that he’d known his heritage but had never intended to claim it. “I—yes, of course. Why would I embarrass you that way?”

“But you must have heard a little about our politics in the war and in the years before that. _I_ would have researched my family.”

“I didn’t dare to—go too deeply. Not when I never anticipated meeting you.”

“You’re daring and reckless in all other aspects of your life, Harry. Can you help me understand why you were going to be so different when it’s a matter of _concern_ to me and Charlus that we might never have got to meet our grandson?”

 _Not your grandson. Your time-traveling great-nephew._ Harry ignored the hammering of his heart and said slowly, “I didn’t think the Potters were blood purists, exactly. But I know that it can be embarrassing even if you’re the most open-minded family on the planet to have an illegitimate child show up out of nowhere. I was thinking of it from that angle.”

“I would have had more of a problem with it if you were Charlus’s son,” Dorea told him immediately. Her eyes and her voice were calm, and Harry wondered if he would ever understand her. “But given that we’d given up on having more children besides Tristan and we never thought he would settle down and have a family, this is a miracle.”

Her hand tightened on his. Harry sighed and looked at the tabletop.

*

“But can’t you see that he’s corrupting you, my lord? You had great and ambitious plans before you met him, and now you’re just focused on seducing Potter!”

Harry paused outside the Malfoy dining room. He’d made plenty of noise as he approached, but it seemed the argument had overpowered it. Tom answered Lestrange’s words a moment later, his own voice calm.

“You don’t understand my goals or what I would sacrifice to attain them, Lestrange. Come in, Harry.”

Harry grimaced as he opened the door. Tom might have arranged the whole argument to coincide with the time that Harry came to the dinner. He loved using Harry to humiliate his pure-blood followers. He had never forgiven them for the time they had treated him as just another Mudblood, though they thought he had.

Harry hated the dynamic. But he hadn’t yet found a way to disrupt it.

Tom’s eyes gleamed at him as Harry walked in and past the enormous cherrywood table. Lestrange was glaring at him as usual. Abraxas had a strictly neutral face. Rosier, with a hooked nose and blank eyes, nodded at Harry and stood up to shake his hand. “I don’t think that we met at much length before. Evan Rosier.”

“Harry Potter.” It was still surreal to speak his actual name to someone in this time.

Rosier smiled a little, although he was examining him the same way Abraxas used to, as if trying to find out what in the world would convince Tom Riddle to get fixated on him. If he figured it out, Harry would ask Rosier to tell him. It wasn’t like he understood it himself.

“Come sit beside me, Harry.”

Apparently he’d held Rosier’s eyes too long. Tom breathed jealousy, sometimes. Harry shook his head as he walked over to Tom’s side of the table and endured the arm around his waist. They might be lovers, as terrible an idea as that was, but Harry wished Tom would save gestures like that for the bedroom.

“Rosier was telling us about some innovations that the Unspeakables have been coming up with,” Tom said lazily.

“You’re young to be an Unspeakable,” Harry said. “Congratulations.”

Rosier shook his head a little. “It’s my cousin who is. But they don’t make the apprentices swear the secrecy oath until they’re journeymen. Under the impression that people that junior can’t learn interesting secrets, I suppose. They’re wrong.”

Harry made an interested noise and then leaned back in the chair a little, letting himself drift. It was unlikely that Rosier would say anything he had to be involved in. Probably secrets that would feed Tom’s love for esoteric knowledge or maybe let him recruit more pure-bloods.

Harry couldn’t be involved in that, for all that people like Rosier and Malfoy probably thought he was, simply by being at Tom’s side. And he was still feeding some information to Albus—a little bit, a little that wouldn’t hurt. He didn’t belong here. He _had_ to go home.

It was like an itch on his skin, and Harry breathed out slowly as he realized that he had probably made a decision. He had been torn and aching for weeks, but now he was ready to confront it. He had to leave.

“…and of course the Time Room is fascinating everybody at the moment.”

Harry turned his head abruptly. Rosier was holding forth with a glass of champagne, or at least something that looked like champagne in his hand, his eyes sparkling. He paused when Harry looked at him and blinked. “Yes, Potter? What is it?”

“Only that I didn’t realize the Unspeakables were looking into time,” Harry said, shaking his head. He felt Tom staring at him, but Tom did that all the time anyway, as if trying to look beneath Harry’s skull and see what was happening within his brain. “I thought it was less extraordinary magic that they only wanted everyone to _think_ was interesting.”

Rosier smiled. “From what my cousin says, some of their reputation is exaggerated, but not everything. And the Time Room is something they discovered, not created.”

“Discovered where?” Harry leaned forwards, and ignored the way that Tom’s arm became an iron belt around him in response.

“In the bowels of the Ministry. There used to be something else down there, something before the Department of Mysteries, but all the records got erased centuries ago. Powerful spells. No one’s managed to counteract them.” Rosier preened a little, but then caught Tom’s eye and went on in a more sober voice. “So the Time Room is something they dug out. And it’s apparently filled with floating devices that reverse time, or isolate a person in bubbles where it passes faster, or even do other things. I don’t think my cousin has enough seniority yet to know everything.”

Harry nodded and said, “Well, I suppose that’s a sign that the Ministry might be lying or exaggerating about other things, as well. Have they found anything else that supposedly existed before the Department of Mysteries?”

*

Harry had been rather proud of that little conversational aside, which meant that Rosier and Malfoy and even Lestrange had started talking about history from four centuries ago, and almost came to blows over whose ancestor had cursed whose. He should have known that Tom would still note his unusual interest.

“Looking into time magic, Harry?”

Harry glanced up from the chair he was sitting in with a book on the history of Parseltongue. They were in the room at Malfoy Manor that seemed to be given over to Tom’s exclusive private use. It was darker than Harry would have preferred, with almost no illumination aside from the fire, but enough firelight glittered to let Harry catch Tom’s eye in the silver mirror he faced. He wore a smile that only looked calm if you didn’t know anything about him.

“I thought it sounded fascinating.” Harry turned a page of his book deliberately.

“It sounds dangerous to me.”

“I—that really does surprise me, Tom. I would have thought you’d want to try it.”

Tom stalked towards him, already bare-chested but still wearing the sleek blue-grey trousers that seemed to be his preferred clothing for beneath his robes. Harry found himself unexpectedly holding back a moan. Tom looked powerful and dangerous that way, skin bearing a few scars that were a reminder of what he had seen and survived, but fewer than Harry had.

And the sleek bulge beneath the trousers was what Harry’s eyes went to next. He swallowed.

Tom didn’t acknowledge Harry’s response with so much as a smile. He stood in front of the ebony wood chair Harry occupied and reached out to press down on his shoulder with a heavy hand. “I don’t want you to go looking for trouble.”

“I _didn’t_. I managed to stay out of it until a few months ago, and that was your fault and Abraxas’s—”

Tom leaned over to press a savage kiss to his mouth. Harry surged up to meet him, glad that this was happening instead of a talk. Words were more dangerous than actions right now.

Tom did try to pull back once and speak, but Harry had had enough of that. He shook his head and slid rapidly down Tom’s body, nuzzling his face against the erection that had been tempting him. Tom caught his breath and held it.

“You—you didn’t want to do this before.”

“That was before,” Harry replied, and yanked down Tom’s trousers.

Tom stepped back, his eyes wide. Harry grinned at him and then eased his pants down slowly, just to be an arse. Tom said nothing, although he looked as if he was clenching every muscle while he waited for Harry to start sucking on him.

_Or not. He probably thinks that “not” is more likely._

But Harry wanted to show Tom that he wasn’t in charge here, that just because Tom was the one who had started this sex thing, it didn’t mean he got to finish it. Harry leaned forwards and sucked Tom in before he could change his mind.

Only sheer stubbornness kept him from coughing Tom’s cock right back out again. Hell, it was _big_ , bigger than Harry had thought it would be. And it was heavy on his tongue, and it poked his mouth in odd ways, and every time he thought he’d got used to it, it would slide some other way and threaten to choke him again.

But he was going to win. Harry dug his hands into Tom’s hips and felt him wince a little, maybe from the sting of Harry’s nails. Well, too fucking bad. Harry blew out over Tom’s cock, and then sucked in, and Tom snapped his hips forwards with a startled groan.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Tom whispered, and he sounded as if he was on the verge of yet another stupid jealous snit like the silent one he’d had over Rosier. Harry wasn’t going to permit _that_ , either. He lapped around Tom’s head and reached out to stroke his bollocks. Tom lost all words and began thrusting in a regular rhythm.

It wasn’t easy, but it was sure satisfying. Tom always seemed so in control most of the time, Harry thought, gazing up as he sucked. Now the line of his throat was back and bare, and his eyes were shut as Harry had only ever seen them for rare blinks. Tom never went to sleep first when they were in bed together, and he always woke up first.

Now he staggered, and Harry reached out and clutched at his hips again, as much to keep him upright as anything else. Tom made harsh noises in response. Harry pinched a fold of skin, and Tom’s eyes flew open again.

“You—”

Harry swallowed as harshly as he’d pinched, and Tom lost all words. He wavered. Harry breathed through his nose as hard as he could and kept going, ignoring the intense taste gathering in the back of his throat.

Tom’s thrusts slowed, then quickened, and abruptly he reached out and gripped the back of Harry’s head. Harry drew away in response. But it was too late, and Tom was coming into his mouth, his hiss of Parseltongue wavering like his balance.

Harry only half-swallowed, and did cough, jerking back to spit all over the floor. Tom didn’t say anything. His breathing was still returning to normal when Harry looked at him again, and his face had a manic flush.

He got to see that much before Tom grabbed him.

They didn’t make it to the bed. Tom bore him down, and held him pinioned with his hands on Harry’s shoulders, rubbing his thigh mercilessly against Harry’s cock. Harry still wore his pants, he protested in a jumble of half-words, and he tried to keep himself from thrusting. It didn’t matter. The pleasure Tom created was as merciless as he was, and Harry crested violently, shouting, his head twisted back.

When his panting had slowed down enough that he could focus on something other than the cooling wetness at his groin and the rawness in his throat, Tom raked a hand through his hair and gripped it. Harry met his eyes and held them coolly. He wasn’t wearing the brooch that Albus had created for him to guard against Tom’s Legilimency, but Tom didn’t even try now. He seemed to have accepted that Harry was naturally a good Occlumens.

And, well, Harry had also threatened him with walking away if Tom ever tried to read his mind, so his restraint now was what Harry expected.

“I will not lose you,” Tom said, as if he needed to repeat the words to hypnotize Harry. “I will not let you go.”

Harry sighed and let his head roll to the side. “I know you won’t,” he said. And he really didn’t expect Tom to ever willingly let him go. If Harry found a way home, if he left—and he knew now that he had to—then he wouldn’t expect Tom to cheerfully help him along his way, either.

“Why aren’t you making the same kind of promises about staying with me?”

Harry tensed all over, and knew that Tom could hardly help but feel it when he was lying on top of him. _Shit_. This was the first time that Tom had ever asked the question.

“Because I can’t,” Harry said.

“You won’t tell me why.” Tom sounded more musing than upset.

Harry shook his head in silence, and pushed at Tom’s hands. Tom let him go. Harry looked at the red handprints on his shoulders and shrugged. Most of the time, Tom was gentle, because it was what Harry responded best to, but sometimes it happened like this.

“If you won’t tell me…”

“I can’t.”

“Then I’ll have to prove to you that you can trust me, and get you to tell me that way.”

Harry froze with tension again, although this time he was standing with his back to Tom. He had thought Tom’s sentence would end with “I’ll have to force it out of you” or something similar. Sometimes it still shook him, how insightful Tom was.

Of course, this particular Tom had never created Horcruxes. He had managed to work out all by himself that Harry was lonely and starving for affection, and he needed a gentle touch the first time.

Sometimes that made Harry’s chest ache with collared hope. Surely this world was different, then, a completely different dimension instead of just the past? But then he would lose hope again because Tom could always be lying, and be so strong-willed that he could go against his own nature if he had to.

Harry wanted to stay here. But he had to go. That was the way it was.

“Harry,” Tom said, voice soft again. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“That I’m tired and would like to go to bed.”

There was a silence so long that Harry wished Tom would attack him, just so it would break and he would be justified in ending things now. But instead, Tom said softly, “Then come with me.”

Harry hesitated. He’d slept with Tom in his own little flat, but not here.

“Abraxas won’t mind,” Tom said. “No one minds. There are still some of the Knights who are having trouble adjusting to the fact that you’re a half-blood, but you’re mad if you think they would voice such things.”

Harry let Tom lead him to the gorgeous, enormous bed, where he stretched out with only a small grunt of discomfort. Tom raised his head at once, of course. “You’re hurt?”

“My throat is a little sore,” Harry said. He had to give Tom something to latch onto, or he wouldn’t give _up_.

Tom nodded, and cast a healing spell. Harry sighed and relaxed next to him. Tom’s arm slid over his waist.

“I wish you could trust me.”

Harry let the words die without a response. The room was dark now, as the fire died, too, and he could feel but not see Tom’s eyes watching him, constantly watching. Harry lay stiff and still and stared up into the darkness at the ceiling.

He _wished_ he could be sure this was a different world and not the changed past. But there was no way to be sure of that, no omniscient being who could tell him. So he had to leave, had to return home and protect the past for those who he owed his first allegiance to, the vulnerable. If this _was_ a different world, it wouldn’t suffer any harm.

And if it wasn’t, then Harry would have done what he could to protect it.

He knew Tom was still awake when he at last slid into sleep, because he always was.

*

“I see,” Albus said slowly when Harry had finished explaining his decision to him. “A choice I honor you for, my dear boy. I only wish that it wasn’t so hard.”

Harry blinked at the floor and said nothing. They had teacups, as usual, but they had drunk the last of the tea long before. Harry had stumbled through his explanation, because he’d had to include what he’d been keeping from Albus so far, the sexual closeness with Tom.

Albus had listened to him and hadn’t judged. Of course, when Harry thought about it, he’d had the same kind of relationship with Grindelwald once upon a time. If there was anyone in any world who could understand him, Albus would.

Harry looked up with a sigh and met Albus’s gaze. “Can you help me get to the Department of Mysteries? Or bring a device out? Or books?”

“Books would be the easiest,” Albus said at once. He had a soft shine to his face again, and Harry felt a surge of strength rise up in his limbs. For obvious reasons, neither Tom nor the Potters were going to help him. Albus had been soft and subdued when they first spoke, reflecting Harry’s grief back at him, but now his encouragement was going to help more than anyone else’s. “And even I would not be able to venture into the Department of Mysteries on a whim. However, I have copies of many of the same books that they might hold in my personal library.”

Harry slumped on his chair. “Thank you. Honestly, thank you.”

“You have made the most difficult decision I think I’ve ever heard of someone making,” Albus said solemnly. “It’s true that I turned away from Gellert, but I did it after a disaster had already happened.” His face darkened again. “I will not speak of that disaster, as it’s not only my secret, but—you are a better man than I am, Harry Potter.”

Harry blinked back tears. “Thank you, Albus.”

Albus squeezed his shoulder once by way of farewell. Harry went back to bed and slept in a better frame of mind.

*

“I would like a good explanation of your absence from dinner the other night, young man.”

Harry swallowed. For a woman he’d only known for a few weeks, Dorea was incredibly intimidating, and all the more so because her voice was low. They stood in the entrance hall of her home, and maybe she just didn’t want to shout and alert Charlus, Tristan, Euphemia, and Fleamont, who were all in the dining room.

But her grey eyes were frosty with disappointment, not anger. Harry glanced at the floor. “I don’t have an excuse. I’m sorry.”

Silence. Harry looked up, wondering if Dorea had gone back into the dining room. But she simply stared at him.

“Harry,” she said next, and her voice had changed completely, and her hand trembled a little as she reached out to him. “Please, dear. I know _something’s_ wrong. I want to help. All of us would, if you would only tell us.”

Harry leaned against her for just a moment, her arm strong and secure around his shoulders. Merlin, he would like nothing more than that, to step back and lay his burden in her hands and let her carry it.

But what could she do? She wasn’t some secret specialist in time magic. Harry knew it was likely that she wouldn’t agree with him that he had to leave, and would pour all her power into persuading him to stay.

It felt like there was a knife in his heart every time he breathed at the thought of leaving her. All of them, but he had become closest to Dorea.

But how could he say that the disappointed hopes of five people were worth more than his friends, and maybe millions of other people in his world, _not existing_? Harry would have given anything not to have to be the one who would make this choice. But he was, and whinging about it wouldn’t change things.

He straightened his shoulders and told her something that would be the truth in a few weeks, at least if he didn’t handle Tom more carefully than he would probably be able to. “I had a fight with Tom.”

“Your _friend_?”

Harry flinched, but Dorea put both arms around him before he could pull back. Her voice was even softer as she said, “I can recognize the signs. I don’t disapprove, my dear. It’s true that Charlus is starting to fuss about great-grandchildren to me—”

 _Oh, God._ Harry was beyond grateful that his supposed grandfather had kept that to just him and Dorea for right now.

“But we only found you a short time ago. And this is another reason you didn’t want to come find us, hmmm?” Dorea’s arms tightened until, if anything could have compensated for the knife under his ribs, they would have. “Please, Harry. Don’t draw back from us. We’re going to accept everything about you. I can’t speak for everyone—I think Tristan is going to take longer to come to terms with having a son—but I love you.”

Harry nearly lost it then. God, the tears were rising; they were going to choke him if he didn’t force them back. He clenched his fists and leaned his forehead on Dorea’s shoulder.

“That was it, wasn’t it?” Dorea whispered into his ear. Her hands were stroking through his hair. Harry imagined having this in his own world, and forcibly banished the thought. “You were afraid that we couldn’t accept you because you like men.”

Harry blinked and sniffled a little, which was a lot less than he wanted to do, and said thickly, “Yes.” At least it would be excellent cover for the real reason, and Dorea was less likely to keep asking now that she had one that satisfied her.

“We will accept you,” Dorea said firmly, and hooked her hand under his elbow. “Come and have dinner.”

It was a wonderful meal, full of fussy dishes that Harry had heard of before but never tasted, like roast boar and larks’ tongues and small stuffed quail. He ate more than he should have, but he also laughed at the old stories Charlus told about the pranks he’d played in Hogwarts, and found Potions more fascinating than he’d ever thought he could when they were explained by “Great-Aunt” Euphemia. Tristan was the sort of quiet he always was around Harry, but he leaned towards him near the end of the meal and murmured, “You’re strong, you know.”

Harry blinked a little. “You mean magically?”

“Yes, but…all sorts of things.” Tristan toyed with his wineglass, and his riotous Potter hair fell into his eyes. “ _I_ wouldn’t have had the courage to pick myself up and meet my new family like you have.” He paused. “I’m proud that you’re my son.”

Harry felt as if he had an iron ball in his throat. He ducked his head, and Tristan reached out and ruffled his hair.

Luckily, choking and ducking his head was practically an _expected_ reaction in this situation. And Tristan was uncomfortable enough already that he wouldn’t demand anything more.

_Tom is the one who taught me to anticipate people’s reactions like this and use them against them._

Harry swallowed, when he could, and ignored that. Well, if that was the case, then he would use the lessons to protect everyone he could.

Even Tom.

*

“I Challenge you.”

Harry paused. He’d attended another meeting of the Knights of Walpurgis where they discussed what kinds of magic they were going to use on key people in the Ministry to make sure they passed certain laws. His head was buzzing, both with the list of names he was storing up to tell Albus and because he could see, now that he knew what Tom really wanted—safety and protection for himself—how those laws fell into a pattern that would mean Tom could never be threatened again.

Now he turned and looked across the enormous ballroom they’d used as their meeting place this time; it was in a manor that Rosier was connected to somehow. It had far too many golden decorations, in Harry’s opinion, and a chandelier that loomed overhead and reflected light into a dazzling broken pattern that had added to Harry’s headache. Now he blinked and tried to focus through the dancing dizziness, to find out who had spoken.

And why he could practically _hear_ the capital letter in it.

“Did you hear me, Potter? I _Challenge_ you.”

Harry held back a sigh that would have rasped his throat raw. It was Aloysius Bulstrode, one of Tom’s new recruits. He had a thick, stocky build, and hands as large as though he wrestled dragons for a living. His dark hair fell into grey eyes gleaming with excitement as he stalked forwards. His wand weaved in his hand.

“Tom,” Harry said, and watched the mild shock on Bulstrode’s features. “What are the rules for a Challenge among the Knights?”

“A duel,” Tom said. He stood in front of the raised chair that didn’t resemble a throne because it didn’t need to. He rested his elbow on the padded red arm of the chair and smiled at Bulstrode. “All spells are allowed except the Cruciatus and the Killing Curse. Duel ends when one of the duelists yields. After that, the one who lost becomes the lowest-ranking member of the Knights until he can Challenge someone else successfully, while the winner assumes the loser’s old place.”

 _Right next to Tom._ Harry didn’t wonder now that Bulstrode had Challenged him. He only wondered that none of the other Knights had.

Then again, most of them had been present in the smaller meetings rather than this full conclave, where they had seen how Tom touched and looked at Harry. Perhaps none of them dared.

“Very well,” Harry said. “I accept the Challenge.”

Bulstrode laughed aloud. Harry saw Malfoy and Rosier exchange glances. Tom took his seat again, lounging against the back. There was laughter in his eyes when Harry looked at him.

 _Of course._ Tom had said before that he had never forgiven the Slytherin pure-bloods for disdaining him as a mere Muggleborn orphan in his first years at Hogwarts. He would look forward to seeing Harry, a fellow half-blood, wipe the floor with them.

Harry shook his head at Tom. He received a glance of such focused delight that he whirled away from it, face aflame.

God, Tom needed to stop looking at him like that.

It made Harry want to trust him with things that were none of his business.

Harry took a deep breath and strode over to the center of the ballroom’s floor to face Bulstrode. Bulstrode was already maneuvering in a way that suggested he’d noticed Harry’s problem with the lights and was trying to take advantage of it. He must be a little smarter than he looked.

Harry still thought there were only two courses of action Bulstrode would take, though. Either he would charge first, trying to get close and overwhelm Harry with his bulk, or—

“ _Imperio_!”

 _Right, he would use the one Unforgivable that’s not banned from this contest._ Harry thought for a moment about pretending to be under the curse and then hexing Bulstrode when he got close enough, but that would make him look weaker than it would clever.

Instead, he shook his head a little and let the curse rush past him like water. Then he smiled. “Was that supposed to affect me?” he murmured.

There was an answering murmur from the avidly watching Knights. Harry wondered for a fleeting moment how many of them could resist the Imperius.

The burning sensation of eyes on his back increased. Harry thought his ability to resist couldn’t have surprised Tom _that_ much, not when Tom thought he was an Occlumens, but he supposed he’d never told Tom about it in so many words, either.

“It was,” Bulstrode said grimly, because apparently he’d never heard of rhetorical questions. “ _Venenum!_ ”

The air in between them boiled and became a flying mess of poison, a rain of green and purple droplets headed straight for Harry. Harry laughed and waved his wand. “ _Silva serpentium!_ ”

Silver and blue trees shot out of the floor in front of him, each of them bearing an enormous snake in their branches. The snakes and trees together, with open mouths and fluttering leaves, absorbed the venom, and then the snakes crawled towards the floor and began advancing on Bulstrode.

He was occupied with Vanishing them for a moment, which gave Harry the chance to murmur, “ _Frigidus in mente_.” He wanted to speak all the spells aloud, so that the Knights would know exactly how much he knew and how stupid it was to challenge him.

And then he wanted to kick himself in the head. _What would it matter? You’re going to be leaving soon, remember?_

But his vision narrowed to the moment of the battle, as he watched Bulstrode’s movements slow, his mind assuming the sluggishness it would if he was freezing to death. Harry strolled a little closer, considering whether he should extend the battle or not. There was something to be said for making it flashy, but on the other hand, winning as quickly as this was impressive, too.

Bulstrode managed to breathe, through trembling lips, “ _Finite_!”, and then his movements abruptly sped up. Harry halted and watched him, curious. So it wouldn’t be such a quick victory after all.

Bulstrode stepped back and pointed his wand straight up as he screamed, “ _Frangere vitrum_!”

The chandelier above them shattered with a sound like glaciers breaking.

Harry spun in a circle, his wand flicking out several spells at once, no longer keeping track if he was saying them aloud or not. He raised a circle of shields around the Knights at the perimeters of the room, raised a special dome of its own above Tom’s head, and then faced upwards as he watched the rain of glass shards start down towards him.

There was no use running. He would never get out of the impact zone.

Harry took a deep breath. “ _Desinere_!”

The magic boiled out of him and swirled up as fog right below the first of the plunging razors as it reached a point perhaps a meter above Harry’s head. Then the fog was abruptly gone, and Harry stared up as the shard above him froze.

The ripple of _stillness_ traveled back up around the whole cone of the broken chandelier, stopping each chip of glass or bit of chain or flickering candle exactly where it was. In far less than five seconds, the whole ballroom above the height of a human’s head was a maze of reflected light and thrown shadow and paralyzed objects.

Harry stepped back and started to sit down in the middle of the floor. He didn’t even manage to glance over and see what Bulstrode was doing. If he lost the Challenge, so be it. He couldn’t stand up now after unleashing that much magic.

Strong arms caught him, and by the sheer firmness of their grip around his waist, Harry knew who it was. He sighed and leaned back against Tom for a minute, then tried to pull away. He could probably stand now. “I’m all right.”

Tom laid a wand against his temple and whispered in a tender tone, “ _Somnio_.”

Harry would have managed to fight off the Sleep Charm any other time. Even now, he struggled for a second, his consciousness flickering like the candles poised above him.

And then, light and consciousness together were snuffed.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry came to in the luxurious bedroom that Abraxas had granted Tom in Malfoy Manor. He frowned as he started to lever himself up. They hadn’t been in Malfoy Manor last night. Why and how had they come here?

“I wouldn’t.”

The words by his ear were almost a coo. The arms that crossed over his waist and the kiss Tom placed behind his ear had nothing to do with gentleness. Harry swallowed and leaned back a little. Yes, Tom was behind him, lying so that Harry’s body barely touched the sheets, but rested mostly on top of Tom instead.

“Do I have magical exhaustion?” Harry asked, staring forwards.

“Yes. And the highest place among the Knights next to mine, not that I would have expected otherwise.”

“Did Bulstrode live?”

There was a long pause. Harry took a sharp breath. Had he caused some _other_ kind of change? Did this mean Millicent Bulstrode would never be born, if that fool was among her direct ancestors? And how would that change the world he was going back to?

“He lived,” Tom said. “For a few hours after that.”

Harry stiffened, sagged back for a second, then tugged hard. Tom evidently hadn’t been expecting that, and Harry got out of his arms and turned around, kneeling on the bed. Tom looked expressionlessly at him. Harry winced as the firelight from the elaborate marble hearth behind Tom cut into his eyes.

“You’re hurt.” Tom’s cool fingers rested on his temple.

“I’m _furious_ ,” Harry said, and jerked his head away, ignoring the feeling like someone had jabbed a hot poker into his ear. “Have you even thought about what this means, you wanker? Like you can’t see someone Challenge me without losing your temper! It’s going to weaken your standing in the eyes of your followers! You should have stayed out of it and let him live!”

Tom’s eyes widened for a moment. Harry nearly thought he would laugh, and he was read to try and curse the bastard wandlessly if that happened.

But then Tom shook his head slowly. “I doubt anyone would think me weak after seeing what I did to Bulstrode for endangering your life.”

“ _Tom_. I told you, you can’t treat me that differently! Maybe someone pretended to be impressed and now they’re planning to strike the minute your back is turned. Did you _think_ of that? All they have to do is threaten me, and you’ll lose control!”

“Not control. I think it takes exquisite finesse to draw someone’s intestines all the way out of their body while they’re still alive.”

Harry stared at him. Tom rose to his feet with sleek grace and circled behind him, or tried. Harry turned in place on the bed so he was still facing Tom. Tom sighed, an almost noiseless breath of air.

“They know that threatening you will not be tolerated,” he said, holding Harry’s eyes. “That is all I wanted them to know.”

“But it could cause problems for the reasons I said.”

“I don’t care if it does. Having you at my side is more important to me.”

 _Shit_. Harry swallowed. The words slid over him like a warm touch, and he hoped that he prevented the appreciation he really felt from appearing on his face. He lowered his eyes, while Tom went on in a low, intense voice, never looking away from him and never touching him.

“I told you before. I thought I had told you. Perhaps not clearly enough. There are many followers whom I might attract, many slights I might avenge, and several ways I could reach my goals. But no one has made my world burn as you do. If you depart or die, then I will never have this again. You are my only choice.”

Harry swallowed and managed to look at Tom again. Tom was staring at him with a face swept clean of every kind of emotion except for what blazed in his eyes.

It was too much. Harry retreated, turning his head away.

“Now.” Tom took a step forwards. “Did you want to say something else? Perhaps tell me again that I shouldn’t defend you?”

Harry shook his head.

“And don’t think,” Tom said, relaxing in a sudden rush that made Harry look at him in spite of all his instincts, “that I am alone in this. I saw the shield you placed over me, Harry.”

“What about it? It kept you safe, didn’t it?”

“Yes. What I mean is that you included a special shield for me alone, separate from the ones that you used on my other Knights.”

“You were standing out of range of the perimeter shields!”

“No,” Tom said quietly. “I wasn’t.”

Harry had no defense against that except silence, so he returned to it. The bed dipped as Tom knelt next to him, and still Harry refused to look. It didn’t have to be real if he didn’t look. Or maybe Tom would grow so irritated with him that he would give this up.

Tom’s hand clasped the back of his neck. “Tell me the source of your reluctance,” he whispered. “Have I not tried hard enough? Do you believe that I would murder people without a good reason?”

“You already have,” Harry snapped, and pushed at his arm. “I wish Bulstrode was still alive.”

“That _was_ a good reason. He deserved to die for trying to kill you.”

“It was a duel! You said yourself that Challenges go on until someone yields. He probably wasn’t trying to kill me, just trap me in a position where I would have to yield.”

“Results matter more than intent.”

Harry closed his eyes. He had known something like this would come up anyway. If it hadn’t been this, it would have been Tom doing something else casually cruel. Tom hadn’t made Horcruxes, and he had this kind of burning, obsessive devotion to Harry, but that wasn’t the same as being a _good_ person.

Besides, Harry was going to be parting from him. Why not begin the process now?

“Harry.” Tom’s voice was the same kind of quiet heaviness he had used earlier, demanding a response.

Harry opened his eyes. “Results don’t matter more than insult to me,” he said, and pried Tom’s hand off the back of his neck. “I wish Bulstrode was still alive. And I want to know why you put me to sleep the instant you touched me after the duel.”

Tom said nothing, but his body surged with tension all the more frightening for being so sharply contained. “Because I knew that you would be magically exhausted after casting those spells, and I didn’t want you hurting yourself further by trying to cast again.”

“No, Tom. Tell the truth.” Harry didn’t even recognize the tone in his voice. _Well, you knew this was coming,_ he repeated to himself. “You wanted me out of the way so I wouldn’t interfere with you torturing Bulstrode to death.”

“It was nothing like that.”

“It was both, probably.” Harry could relent that much. He was sure Tom had genuinely wanted to protect him. But that wasn’t going to get Harry to excuse him, not this time. “But I still don’t want someone’s death laid at my feet like a gift.”

“What do you want? Tell me.”

Harry shook his head wearily. “For you to find my shirt.” He’d noticed he was bare-chested when he woke, but he’d deliberately not let himself think about it.

Tom’s eyes flickered up to his face.

“I’m leaving, Tom.” Harry stood and crossed the room when Tom did nothing. He still wobbled a bit, but he was strong enough to use the Floo. Or the Knight Bus, which seemed only slightly more erratic here than it had in his world, and was sometimes the way he’d got back to his flat from the Ministry when he was exhausted with spellcasting.

“When will I see you again?”

Harry took a deep breath and studied the wardrobe in front of him. Yes, there was a shirt that would fit him. He didn’t care at the moment if it was Tom’s or someone else’s. “You won’t.”

Tom moved up behind him with sublime quietness and quickness. Harry didn’t turn to face him. He shrugged the shirt over his head. Tom’s hands settled on his shoulders, trying to pin him, but Harry just took a step away and held out his hand.

His wand zoomed over to him from where it had been lying on another table, and Harry sagged to his knees. _Shit_. The blast of blackness in his head warned him that he really shouldn’t have tried any wandless magic so soon after stopping the falling glass.

“Stop running and _look_ at me.” Tom’s voice was a choked snarl.

“You _killed_ someone. You killed someone and put me to sleep so I couldn’t stop it. You didn’t do it for me, or to protect me. You did it because you were in a temper.” Harry dug down deep, found the strength, and forced himself to stand again. “How can I trust that you won’t turn that temper on me someday?”

It was a low blow, the lowest he could muster. Better to make Tom bleed now than to let their attachment grow and sever it like a limb when he returned to his own time.

“I will do anything you want to prove that you can trust me.”

Harry walked from the room. Tom moved close behind him, and ignored it when someone ducked out of sight down a side corridor with a choked noise. Harry swallowed desperation as sour as lava.

Tom _had_ to care about his standing among his Knights. That was the only way that he would achieve his plan, of making pure-bloods pay for the insults they had offered him and constructing a wall of protection around himself, one made of money, spells, and legal immunity.

“Anything,” Tom said, and his voice was close enough to Harry’s ear that Harry felt the warm brush of it. He shook himself and kept moving.

Tom grabbed his arm. Harry used the hold to pivot and bring his wand up beneath Tom’s jaw. He knew that he would probably pass out if he used any magic right now, but he could still injure Tom badly.

Then he made the mistake of looking into Tom’s eyes.

They were molten with fury and desperation of his own. He leaned in until he could have touched Harry’s lips in a kiss and whispered, “You are worth more to me than all this. You make me feel things I didn’t know existed.”

Harry jerked back with an oath, and Tom let him go. And he stood in one place as he watched Harry walk away. Harry made sure to keep his focus on the richly-woven carpet at his feet and swallow again and again. It was the only way he could keep down the bitterness.

Of _course_ he had found this kind of devotion from someone in a different time, someone he could never have.

_Someone who would kill anybody who threatens you._

Harry breathed out slowly. Yes, he had to remember that. That was enough to temper the bitterness.

What tempered it was more bitterness. But the situation was fucked-up enough. Harry wouldn’t remain here and condemn more innocent people to death.

*

“I believe this book would probably be of the most interest to you.”

Harry rubbed his eyes and leaned forwards to look at the tome Albus was extending. He had missed Auror training today, sending off an owl with a plea of illness. He had been up all night seeking peace and not finding it, and he knew he would be useless at spellcasting from the aftermath of the exhaustion anyway.

“What is that?” Harry tilted his head to the side, trying to make sense of the spiral design on the page Albus was showing him. At first he’d thought it was some kind of illustration of a windstorm, but no, now that he studied it, it was a runic pattern set into a pictured floor. Not a circle, like every other runic pattern Harry had seen and studied in the past few years, but a long, wavering, snaking mass of lines, ornamented here and there with burning flames and bowls of water and star-shaped objects.

“The design that could let someone travel in time if certain conditions are met.” Albus pushed his glasses up his nose. “The problem with creating it is twofold. First, as you can see, it requires multiple components, not only the runes that construct the basic spiral. Second, it requires each line of the pattern to be coated by the blood of the person who wishes to travel.”

Harry whistled thoughtfully. “So I would have to collect my blood for maybe a month beforehand, and use Blood-Replenishing Potions. But then I would have to spread all of it out on the design at once.”

Albus nodded. “It requires enough blood to kill _two_ healthy humans if you attempted to collect it all at once.”

“Well, I can do that.” Harry’s eyes traveled down the page. “Oh, that’s another problem, isn’t it? It requires an extremely powerful wizard to do it, and they have to know exactly what the future they’re going to looks like.”

“Yes. That last is the most persistent problem, I believe. Whoever created this design was not likely thinking that it would be used by a wizard who had come back in time before even attempting to travel the other way.”

Harry nodded absently, reading through the list of ingredients. He did wince when he read about the gold and the jade that he would need. “Um, I don’t have enough money to buy most of this. Could you—”

“I have enough,” Albus said kindly. “And some of what might be beyond my reach I can get in trade, or I already have in storage.”

Harry raised his eyes and studied him thoughtfully for a second. “You’re much more willing to help me than most people would be. Especially since it means that you’re going to be losing your spy in the Knights of Walpurgis.”

“I would rather that you go back to your own time,” Albus said, and then shook his head. “And in truth, this is better than some other outcomes as far as Mr. Riddle is concerned.”

Harry blinked. Albus’s face softened. “You know some of my own history. I waited far too long to see what Gellert had become, and it cost me personally, but it also cost the wizarding world. What would happen if you remained at Mr. Riddle’s side, denying what he is, and helped strengthen him? He might have accumulated power to the point that you couldn’t have defeated him even if you turned on him ultimately.”

Harry nodded sharply. He hadn’t considered that. When he was with Tom, it was easy to let the world melt and float into slivers of magic and heat, let nothing exist outside the bed.

He shouldn’t ever have been thinking that way. But he had woken up, and he thought the chances were excellent that he would never see Tom again. How could he forgive the insults to his pride that Harry had dealt him?

“Harry?”

Harry started and returned to himself. “Oh, yes. So if we can start working on getting the gold and jade and brewing the Blood-Replenishing Potions, then I can start working on the runes I’ll need to know…”

*

“Feeling better, Potter?”

Harry grimaced a little as he nodded to one of the other Auror trainees, Alyssum Parkinson, who had come over to stand beside him. She’d ignored him when he first joined the classes, but had become miles more polite once word of his “real” relationships with the Potters had got about. “Yes, thanks.”

Parkinson eyed him for a second as if she suspected him of lying, then smiled and tapped her wand against his chest. “Glad to hear it. It got boring yesterday. No one to duel.”

“I’m sure there were plenty of people to duel.” Harry looked around the huge training classroom. They spent at least one day a week here, and usually more, depending on how much their instructors thought they needed the practice. Right now, more than one trainee was getting yelled at by Aurors Nott or Greengrass, often in front of gouges in the walls that weren’t as deep as they should be.

“None with your level of skill.” Parkinson flicked her hair behind her head. She kept it in a long, dark braid that must have some kind of protective enchantments on it, since it never strangled her no matter what spells Harry aimed at it. “Come on, let’s go. I want you to show me how badly being sick affected you.”

Harry faced her across the width of the stone room. She was smiling widely, which made him sure she was up to something, and sure enough, she cast a nonverbal spell that hurled a storm of snow at him—something she had tried to do the other day and failed at.

Harry called fire with ease, melted the snowflakes, and stepped through them into a whirlwind of hail. This time, Harry decided that he would do something more complex than melting them, if only to prove to himself than the magical exhaustion was completely gone. “ _Vade retro_!”

The spell bucked against him for a moment; technically it was a simple charm, but it took a lot of power to make work, rather like the spell he had used to stop the glass of the chandelier in midair.

_Don’t think of that._

Instead, Harry watched with some satisfaction as all the hailstones turned on themselves, sometimes actually whirling around in place, and dashed back at Parkinson. She squawked and ducked out of the way, getting hit twice before she actually remembered to end the spell. She glared at Harry while rubbing a brand-new bruise near her eye. “That’s not the best technique in battle, Potter, not when all someone has to do is cancel their own charm.”

“Yes, but it takes people by surprise. Admit it, you didn’t even think of that at first. And if I’m sending knives or something else that’s deadly back at someone…”

Parkinson grinned unexpectedly. “Yes, I can see how that would work.” She studied him for a second, intently enough that Harry frowned. There were a few Parkinsons among Tom’s followers, although they were neither close nor important, and Harry had only heard their names. He wondered if _this_ particular Parkinson was now spying on him for Tom.

“What?” he snapped finally.

“I’m just seeing what Auror Greengrass meant about you,” Parkinson murmured. “Why she decided to accept you for training so quickly. You have power, of course, but it’s your creativity that makes you deadly. That’s the kind of thing I want to learn to imitate.”

Harry flushed. “Yeah, well, anyone can do that—”

“Once they learn how, sure. It’s just that I have to study and think about ways to integrate that kind of spell into my repertoire, and _you_ just do it on the fly.” Parkinson aimed yet another grin at him. “Don’t worry. I’ll work on it and then you’ll have some real competition.”

Harry blinked and managed a faint smile. Parkinson bumped his shoulder hard with hers as she started towards Nott, who was calling her over. “Don’t get sick again, all right?” she said. “Like I mentioned, it’s boring without you here.”

Harry stared at her back. That almost sounded like he had—a friend. Someone who noticed when he was sick. Someone who wanted to practice and improve her dueling against him, but also someone who missed his presence.

Harry closed his eyes. _You can’t. It doesn’t matter. Come a month, and you’re going to be gone._

Luckily, he didn’t have to interact with Parkinson again that morning, so he didn’t have to snub her. He had the feeling it would be much harder to do that with someone who hadn’t killed a person in the last twenty-four hours.

*

Harry aimed his wand at the owl sitting on the windowsill. It was a majestic snowy one he had seen before, flying around the Owlery at Malfoy Manor. Just the sight of it made his throat ache. It looked so much like Hedwig, although without the special warmth that her eyes had always had when she looked at him. “Go away.”

The owl gave a gentle hoot and spread its wings as though to show that, while it wasn’t his friend, it wasn’t hostile. The parchment hooked to its foot was what Harry watched more warily. It had the entwined-snakes design on the outside that Tom had once sent to him through the post as a mark they could share someday.

_I really didn’t think I would hear from him again. Well, but maybe that parchment is the denunciation he needs to make._

Harry relaxed a little when he thought about that, and only cast the most cursory detection spells on the parchment and the owl. That did make the bird ruffle its feathers and glare at him. “Sorry,” Harry muttered. “You can leave the letter on the table.”

The owl flew over and did just that, but then perched on the back of the chair Albus usually used when he visited, shaking its tail a little. Harry stared at it. “I’m not going to respond.”

The owl turned its head the opposite direction and ignored him. Apparently he had a guest until he changed his mind. Harry rolled his eyes as he reached for the letter. “I don’t have any owl treats, either.”

That got him a glare that almost certainly accused him of being a philistine. Harry shook his head and opened the letter.

_You are right. I killed Bulstrode in a fit of temper._

Harry staggered back and found himself leaning against the wall. The owl hooted. Harry stood upright and shook his head. He hadn’t expected those words, but he owed Tom this much. He’d read the letter.

_I cannot bear the thought of anyone harming you. When I think of it, the kind of red rage descends across my vision that used to happen when I heard the word “Mudblood” directed at me, and that has not possessed me for a decade. Do you know what this means? For me to prize you as highly as myself?_

_I do not know for certain if what I feel is love. But you bring me the closest to it that I can come. I told you that before._

“Yeah, you did,” Harry muttered, which got another curious look from the owl. He drew in a ragged breath. _Shit_. This had less to do with what Tom “really” felt for him, and more to do with the impact that Harry leaving would probably have on him.

But then again, wasn’t that the point of the conversation he’d had with Dumbledore when they looked at the runic design? Tom could become greater and more terrible with someone next to him, someone he trusted completely and who would cure some of the weaknesses that he would otherwise succumb to.

It couldn’t happen.

_I only want the truth. Come back to me and explain why you would refuse this. I will listen no matter what you say. I cannot promise that I will give up reaching for you, not when I have no idea what would make you retreat from me, but I will listen. Name the time and place of your choosing. Only make it accessible by Floo or Side-Along Apparition, and I will come to you, leaving my wand behind._

_TMR._

Harry shivered and bowed his head over the letter. Shivers kept sweeping his body, as warm and frigid as if Tom was there and touching him.

He had _never_ heard of Tom willingly disarming himself, in either world. Even when he spent time with Harry in bed, his wand was always in view and accessible to him, unlike Harry’s, which Tom would sometimes put out of sight. He would have to trust not only Harry but also whoever brought him, or let him use their Floo fireplace.

_I thought…_

_I thought he just wasn’t thinking far ahead enough about what his killing of Bulstrode would do to his standing among the Knights. That he acted out of anger the way he did when—I mean, the way the other one did when he was Voldemort. No matter whether the action would actually benefit him or not._

_But no. He knows. He just_ doesn’t care.

Harry breathed raspingly out, and the owl flew over to the table next to him and groomed a stand of his hair for a second, hooting in concern. Harry smiled wanly at it. He supposed he must look bad if a Malfoy owl thought it had to offer comfort.

Tom could feel what he would feel, and Harry would have to feel what _he_ felt, too. Which was longing to stay with someone who could love him this way, who could put aside his weapons and—even if he didn’t feel remorse for Bulstrode’s death—would offer atonement.

But Tom had still killed someone.

Harry breathed around the feeling of someone having scooped out most of his heart, and glanced at the book that was also on the table, open to the picture of the runic design he would need to create to go back home. Another thought stirred to life in his head.

What if he asked Tom to come three weeks or a month from now, when the design would be completed and all the blood Harry needed to drip into vials every night would be collected? Tom—needed to know the truth. At least then he might accept that there was no way he could win Harry back, and not go on the sort of rampage that Harry feared he would if someone he _could_ love was lost to him. Harry would tell him the truth and then step back into the design and let it do what needed to be done. He would make his last sight in this world Tom’s face, and if it was devastated and angry…

That would be all Harry deserved.

He wrote his response quickly, just a few lines saying that he was willing to meet with Tom if he came through the Floo and left his wand behind, and giving him the address of the house in Godric’s Hollow where he and Albus were laying out the design. It wouldn’t matter if Tom got it right now. Albus had the house, including the Floo connection, heavily warded against anyone who wasn’t them. Harry would only have to drop the wards once.

He watched the owl fly away with a deepening sense of peace. This was the best compromise he could make. He had to go, to spare this world as much as his own, but he could tell the truth.

Someone who had bared his heart to Harry as Tom had deserved no less.


	3. Chapter 3

“How are you going to handle your family?”

Harry sighed and rubbed his forehead. He and Albus had worked all day on carving the first spirals of the runes into the floor of the cottage, and now they sat outside in the soft, warm dusk, with Harry staring up at the stars and trying to recall exactly what Ron’s and Hermione’s faces had looked like.

“I think staging an accident is best, if you’re willing to help me there, too.” Harry glanced out of the corner of his eye at Albus, who watched him gently. “They’ll mourn me, but they’ve only had a short while to get attached. If they think I’m dead, they won’t have a reason to search for me.”

“But you don’t think that will do for young Mr. Riddle.”

Harry sighed out. “No. I want him to know the truth.”

Albus shook his head. “If you must, you must. But I want you to consider that he may have more stability, in the end, if you simply disappear or if he thinks you dead.”

“I want to tell him.”

Albus nodded finally. “I was once in the same position with Gellert,” he said, smiling wistfully at the evening star appearing on the horizon. “Come, Harry. What kind of accident do you think would be best?”

“Could you create an illusion of a Muggle motor vehicle killing me?”

Albus’s eyes were deep and grave and very blue. “I would have to spend some more time studying them than I have so far, but yes, I think I could do that. Why is that your choice?”

“It’s sudden, it’s violent, it makes sense that the damaged body wouldn’t look much like me and there wouldn’t be much left to bury.” Harry leaned forwards, hands linked around his knees. “And they’re pure-blood wizards. They won’t know anything about how a death is treated in the Muggle world, either, or whether it’s reasonable for the vehicle that supposedly kills me to drive away.”

“A good point.” Albus squeezed his shoulder once. “You are incredibly strong, my boy. I only wish that you didn’t have to be.”

Harry smiled at him wearily. “Me, too.” Then he forced himself back to his feet. They still had runes to carve on some of the jade panels that they would embed in the floor.

*

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Harry stepped to one side and then turned and braced his back against the side of what would one day be Madam Malkin’s shop in Diagon Alley. Right now it was a place that sold sweets. Malfoy and Rosier were behind him, both glaring at him as if he was one of the Knights who sat around planning ways to infiltrate the Ministry.

 _Remember that they do think that, and you can’t give up your cover now,_ Harry reminded himself, and glared back. “What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t been to meetings in a fortnight.” Malfoy was turning purple in the face. Rosier seemed to be watching them both equally, as if this was a situation where he would have to choose sides and he hadn’t picked yet. “You wrote _one_ letter back to our lord, and that’s it. I know because he hasn’t asked to borrow an owl again, and he would have. My family’s owls are the best.”

“Did you have something else to say, or are you going to brag about your family’s birds?”

“You need to come back.”

Harry sighed and conjured a bubble shield around them that would keep sound from escaping. It was the middle of a Wednesday afternoon and he’d been able to leave Auror training early since he already knew all the spells Auror Greengrass was concentrating on today. Still, there were enough people in Diagon Alley that Harry didn’t want anyone to overhear this. “Do you know what was happening when I was there?”

“Tom was stable,” Malfoy snapped without hesitating.

“I couldn’t say the same thing for sure, since I haven’t been a Knight for as long as Abraxas,” Rosier murmured while Harry stared at Abraxas in shock. “But it did seem as if he was more relaxed with you there.”

“Tom’s always been too tense,” Malfoy went on. “I always dreaded it when he got angry, because that much tension had to go somewhere. But since you’ve been there, his mind’s been clearer, and he doesn’t hurt people as often.”

“You’re delusional,” Harry finally said. That wasn’t at all the reaction he’d expected from Tom’s devoted followers. Relief, yes, or maybe plotting to take Tom down. Not…whatever this was. “I made him weaker by being there.”

“No, _you’re_ delusional,” Malfoy muttered.

“Explain this reasoning of yours to us, Potter.” Rosier was watching him with what now seemed to be real interest. It briefly dashed through Harry’s mind that it was a good thing Tom wasn’t here. He would strike back at Rosier. But soon enough Tom would never have to do that again. “Why would you make him weaker?”

“You saw what he did to Bulstrode!”

“I did, yes. It was perfect. Such control of his magic.”

 _Right, Knight of Walpurgis,_ Harry reminded himself, and managed not to huff in response. “Didn’t it occur to you that that meant Tom was violating the rules of his own Challenges?”

Rosier and Malfoy glanced at each other. Harry didn’t understand the silent communication flowing between them, but he had hoped it would have some result other than what happened, which was Rosier turning back to him and saying, “No.”

“Why would it be a violation?” Malfoy asked. “I mean, yes, technically Bulstrode didn’t yield to you, but you obviously won the Challenge. And Bulstrode could have killed _everybody_ in the room with that stupid chandelier trick. We would have died if you were a less powerful wizard. Tom killed Bulstrode because he was too stupid to be a Knight, not just for what he did to you.”

Harry heard the wood of his wand creak in warning where he gripped it. He relaxed his hand and shook his head. “But that means he’s hurting someone the way that you said he used to.”

“He knew exactly what he was doing,” Malfoy countered. “He was cold, then. Controlled. Most of the time when we were younger, he would lash out, and he might not even aim at the person who’d caused him the most aggravation. Frankly, I prefer you at our lord’s side, Harry. You balance him.”

Malfoy had only called him by his first name a time or two in the past when obviously trying to ingratiate himself. Harry shook his head now with his eyes fastened on the earnest, pointy face.

_I have to go back, or his grandson might never be born._

“But not everyone thinks your way. He’s going to appear weak in the eyes of others. I’m surprised he already hasn’t, with the way he wants to touch me and keep me at his side.”

“I haven’t heard one person say that since his demonstration with Bulstrode. They know now not to attack you or allow you to come to harm in any way. And that’s a _good_ thing. None of us want your place, you know.”

“Right,” Harry said, and heard his own voice grow frosty. “None of you want to be second-in-command., Rosier. Of course.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Rosier studied him for a second. “None of us want to be in our lord’s bed, or that close to him. It would mean bearing the brunt of his regard.”

“You would do it for power.”

Rosier rolled his eyes. “Maybe some of the idiots like Bustrode would, but they’re the ones who would have no chance against you and almost never attend regular meetings, anyway. You’re the right one for this position, Potter. Believe me. Staying a few circles away from Riddle is the best idea. You want him to notice you briefly, not permanently. You’re his only exception.”

Harry took a deep breath and shook his head. He was doing it again, letting himself be drawn into debates about this as if reality would change if he spoke about it often enough. He’d made his decision. “I’m not coming back.”

“Please, Harry,” Malfoy said, hands stretched out as if to show that he wasn’t holding a wand. “Your objection is that he killed Bulstrode, right?”

“Yes.”

“More people are going to end up dead if you don’t come back.” Malfoy’s grey eyes had thousands of shadows behind them. “His mind—our lord’s mind is practically disintegrating under the pressure.”

“Ridiculous,” Harry managed to say, although his lips were dry enough that he wanted to lick them. “I haven’t been there for long and he was fine for years before I was.”

“But now he needs you. We want you to come back.”

“No,” Harry said, and moved enough away from the shop not to be overcome by its Apparition wards before he leaped through space.

He sat on the bed in his flat, knees drawn up to his chin, and kept his eyes closed. He could too easily picture how Tom’s eyes might flash red and his hand might go to his wand to punish someone in a way he would be sorry for later.

_But you can’t prevent that from happening. You already proved that when he killed Bulstrode anyway._

Harry swallowed. Yes, maybe more people would die. But not as many as would if he stayed here.

He sent out an owl with an order for the food he’d gone to Diagon Alley to get, and turned to feverishly reading the book with the description of the runic pattern again. He had to be sure that he’d got it exactly right.

*

“This is nearly perfect.”

Dorea’s voice was soft. Harry leaned against the chair he’d taken next to her, without answering. They were in the gardens behind Fleamont and Euphemia’s house, a sprawling place that nevertheless didn’t rise above one floor. There was antique wood and stone everywhere, making Harry wince as he thought about what he might happen if he ever had to cast to defend himself inside it.

Being out in the garden, the way they were now, was much better. Harry lazily watched fairies circle the star-shaped white flowers on a climbing vine in a trellis in the corner.

_Neville would love this place._

Harry managed to swallow a sticky mass in his throat. Taking another sip of the wine that Dorea had offered him helped. He would get to tell Neville all about it when he saw him again. It wouldn’t be long now.

He tried to picture the way Neville would look, and strangely enough, he couldn’t. Harry blinked and stared into his wineglass. He was pretty sure that he knew why. In his first two years here, he’d been sure he would never find a way back. He had worked to fit in and keep his head down, and not concentrate on what he’d lost.

It made sense that some memories would fade and be lost, or get misty. But he would renew them soon enough.

“Harry?”

Harry glanced sideways at his grandmother. She was studying him with a wistful smile. “I know that you’ve told me more than enough, and you probably feel like I’m prying,” she said, half-laughing. “But you’ve been melancholy this evening. Did something else happen? Did you fight with your young man?”

Harry did manage to smile, picturing Tom’s face if he ever heard Dorea call him that. “Not exactly. But I realized it wasn’t going to work out.”

“Oh, Harry.” Dorea reached over to him and caressed his cheek. “Why?”

Harry leaned into her touch and sighed. Yes, he would be leaving, but for the moment, he tried to memorize the way her hand felt on his skin and the soft-as-starlight concern in her eyes. “He did something that he knew I wouldn’t approve of, and he made sure I didn’t know about it until it was too late.”

“I see. And you feel that was dishonest of him?”

“ _Yes_. He had to know I would object.”

Dorea studied him with a shrewd gaze, never taking her hand away from him. It was a strange look. Harry had thought she’d either comfort him or try and tell him that Tom wasn’t worth it anyway, but she seemed to be peering into the depths of his mind instead.

“Did he do it to protect you?” she asked abruptly.

Harry started back. Dorea only reached out for his hand and placed it on the arm of her own chair, covering it with her palm. Harry stared down at it as he answered. “Yes. How did you guess that?”

“I may not have known you very long,” Dorea murmured, “but one doesn’t have to to realize that you don’t think highly of your own claims. You knew years ago that you could have made your life much more comfortable by approaching us, but you were worried about how it might affect us. I wonder if your companion realized that he would never gain your approval no matter what happened, but decided living with your anger was preferable to leaving you undefended.”

Harry swallowed. “I know he thinks of it that way. But he went too far. I could have understood a small action, but this—this was just malicious.”

“Ah. I see.” Dorea gave him a smile that was still strange. “Is it possible that you would have seen it as malicious no matter what happened?”

Harry shook his head. “I really don’t think so. This was too far. We’re finished.”

“I would give him another chance,” Dorea advised him, her hand squeezing once before she let his go and picked up her glass of wine again. “I know that’s a hard thing to hear when you’ve made a decision that you believe is rooted in righteousness, but I tend to sympathize more with your young man’s perspective.”

Harry blinked at her. “What? I mean, why? You don’t know what he did or what the person he was trying to ‘protect’ me from did.”

Dorea took a long moment to answer. “You are so purely Potter that it’s as though your Muggle mother made no contribution to your heritage at all,” she murmured, and Harry flushed and glanced away. “But I was born a Black. That’s exactly the sort of thing I would do to protect Charlus or Tristan. They’d argue with me, but they’d come around in the end, because they love me too much to never forgive me. And now, Harry, I would do the same sort of thing for you. I wonder if your _friend_ thought the same way. That he loves you, and you love him, too much for your morals to withstand.”

Harry closed his eyes. Dorea reached over and petted his hair.

“But that only makes it worse, if that’s true,” Harry whispered at last. “Because it would encourage him to go further and further, and what would happen if he killed someone?” He managed to cut off the question before he added “again.”

“I would not care that much, if it kept those I loved safe. I would face the consequences, if you were safe.”

Harry had no answer to that, and Dorea broke the silence a little while later, talking lightly of other things. Harry answered mechanically, his mind conjuring up an image of the illusion he would have Albus cast, so that his family would think he had died in a car accident.

It was horrible. But he had been sure, before he heard this conversation and Dorea’s empathy for Tom, that it was less horrible than what Tom had done.

Now—now he imagined it smashing into his family’s peace, and he was no longer sure.

*

“Right. Sure you’re sick, Potter. Get out here!”

Harry jumped out of bed when he heard the knocks on his door. They transformed into pounding fists, and he smiled, a little grimly, drawing his wand. It sounded as though some members of the Knights of Walpurgis had finally decided to come and get revenge on him. He’d _known_ Malfoy and Rosier’s attitude couldn’t be common.

But when he cast a charm that turned the door of his flat transparent, it was Alyssum Parkinson who was standing out there, using both hands in succession.

“You’re a bloody coward is what you are!”

Harry leaned his forehead against the wall near the door a second, then sighed and used another charm to unlock it. Parkinson stumbled in as it opened, but caught her balance handily and studied him for a second before snorting. “ _Knew_ you weren’t sick.”

“All you need to know is that I’m not coming back to Auror training.” That had been an unpleasant conversation with Auror Greengrass, especially since she had adopted the position of not believing Harry and telling him that he probably had a fever and didn’t know what he was saying. She’d sent him home to “rest.” Harry had given up in disgust. In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter much what Greengrass believed or didn’t believe when he “died.”

“Why? You’re the best. I already chose you as my future partner when we’re assigned.”

“What the fuck, Parkinson.”

“Oh, good, you don’t mind swearing in front of a _lady_.” Parkinson took a few steps into his flat, staring around and then shaking her head so that her braid whipped against the back of her neck. “Why are you staying in a place this shitty? I know the Potters would put you up in some kind of sleek manor.”

“I prefer to have my independence, and they shouldn’t have to pay for me. Leave.”

“No.” Parkinson cast a cleaning charm on the nearest chair and still eyed it dubiously before she sat down. “Anyway. My family doesn’t have enough wealth to never have to work, but we have pull in the Ministry. And you’re far and away the best of the Auror trainees. So that means we’re going to be partners when we finish training. That’s the way it is. I see the best and I take it.”

Harry stared at her. Then he said, “I’m not coming back to Auror training.”

“So you said. But that’s just words. I know you’ll change your mind.”

“No, you don’t.” Harry felt as tired as though he’d spent all night staying up to study the runic pattern, when in fact he’d actually had three hours of sleep. “I’ve chosen to move on, Parkinson. I won’t be around in a little while.”

Parkinson narrowed her eyes and sat up. “So you’re going to be an Auror somewhere else? Or a private assassin? Honestly, that’s where the money is. I’d take it up myself if I didn’t have some scraps of morality.”

“ _No_. I made my decision.”

“But you have skills that no one else in our classes does. And it’s obvious you thrive there. You’ll change your mind.”

“No, I won’t.”

Parkinson didn’t argue with him again. Instead, she put her chin in her palm and stared at him as if he was a great mystery. Then she put her elbow on the table and went on staring at him, but cast a glance downwards and another cleaning charm on the wood after a moment.

“You really are stupid,” she said finally. “A genius with magic, but an idiot nonetheless. You’re going to walk away from your family and your friends to go somewhere else for no apparent reason?”

“My family is my business. And I don’t know what friends you’re talking about.”

Parkinson sighed in a way that made it clear how very put upon she was by the universe. “Me. I’m your friend, Potter. Although I’m seriously reconsidering that at the moment. I can’t have an idiot tarnishing my reputation.”

Harry glared at her, but said nothing. Parkinson wanted to use him. She’d proclaimed it unabashedly a few minutes ago.

That got him another sigh, and Parkinson said, “Listen. I might want to benefit from being near you, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. You’re _also_ the only one in our class who sees me as a worthy opponent instead of either a weak girl or someone whose family they don’t want to offend. I’ve become a better fighter because you don’t hold back when you’re working with me. You’re funny and honest and someone who makes me want to be better in all kinds of ways. You think I’d be here if you were just someone whose company I sometimes enjoyed?”

Harry hesitated. Then he said, “That almost sounds like a romantic declaration, Parkinson.” Maybe that would be enough to upset her and make her go away.

Parkinson snorted. “No. I know you don’t look at me that way. And no offense, Potter, but I’d want to fuck a man who could pull his head out of his arse once in a while. Fighting beside one who can’t is okay, though.”

Harry closed his eyes. Everything just made him more exhausted. He wondered for a second why Albus was the only one who supported his decision, but he put the speculation aside. He knew why. Albus was the only one who knew the full context, who understood how important this was.

“I’m not going to change my mind.”

“I can be as annoying as possible until you do,” Parkinson said. “You are so lucky to have me as a friend.”

Harry snapped his wand out and pointed it at her. “Get out of my flat.”

“Oh, I will. But you can’t stop me from coming back tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, too. Eventually, coming back to Auror training will be less annoying than dealing with me.”

“I’ll set up wards that you can’t get through.”

“Any wards strong enough to stop me would mean that they’d interfere with regular people coming and going from your building, too.” Parkinson grinned at him and cast another cleaning charm on her elbow as she stood up. “I think I’ll write a letter to your grandmother. My mother knows her, a little. She deserves to know that you’re living in squalor because you’re all noble and stupid about it.”

Harry stared at her back as she let herself out. Parkinson did pause on the top stair to look over her shoulder, and the laughter had died from her eyes.

“Let people help you, Harry. That’s all I want to do, and I’d reckon it’s all your family wants to do, too.”

She walked away, and Harry shut the door. For a moment, doubt quivered and trembled in him. When Parkinson and Dorea and even Malfoy and Rosier thought his decision was wrong…

But he still had millions of people who might not exist if he didn’t go forwards in time again. Perhaps hundreds who would die if he strengthened Tom by remaining at his side.

What _else_ could he do?

*

“I wish that you would reconsider inviting young Mr. Riddle, Harry.”

Harry shook his head as he walked around the outside of the runic design one more time. The objects other than the runes were under Preservation Charms, which would be released at the appropriate time: the flames were halted mid-flicker, the water lay perfectly fresh in flat silver bowls, and the star-shaped objects, which they had adapted as Pensieves containing memories of Harry’s future with star-shaped rings of steel fastened onto them, were motionless even when Harry stepped heavily nearby.

“He deserves to hear the truth.” Harry turned to face Albus. “If you don’t want to be in the same room as him, however, I understand.”

“I will be here under a Disillusionment Charm. I have no wish to distress either of you more than is necessary.”

 _But you still intend to be here._ Harry nodded without speaking and glanced at the golden clock on the wall. Three minutes to seven. He uncapped the first of the vials of blood he’d gathered, also under Preservation Charms, and began pouring it carefully along the lines of the runes.

“You need not fear that you have done it less than perfectly, my dear boy. It is most impressive.”

Harry gave him a faint smile and continued pouring. “Thank you, sir.” One minute to seven, and the next vial was necessary. Harry sighed. This was taking longer than he’d thought. It meant that he might not complete the pattern before Tom showed up.

And he _needed_ it to be complete. He had to have the pattern whole and shining behind him, humming with magic, ready to take him home. There was too much chance that Tom would prevent him from going, otherwise.

“Is there any rule that says I can’t pour the blood with my magic?” he asked Albus abruptly.

Albus shook his head, ginger-grey beard swaying for a moment. “None, Harry. But I would do it soon.” The fire in the Floo connection had flared, and Albus waved his wand and Disillusioned himself at the same moment.

Harry laid the vials of blood on the floor in front of him and used his wand to uncap them. Then he concentrated on what he wanted, forcing his magic into being through will alone, because he didn’t know a spell that would have the exact effect.

“Harry.”

He would have started, but he clamped his will down, and didn’t. He watched as the vials soared out over the pattern and drizzled the blood down across the dreamy maze of lines, stretching across both ordinary floor and the plates of gold and jade set flat into the stone. The pattern began to hum softly.

Only then did Harry turn and face Tom.

He had come alone through the Floo connection, as he had promised. His sleeves were short and he wore trousers without pockets, probably to convince Harry that he didn’t have his wand. He spread his bare hands wide at the same moment.

But his eyes were so dark and blazing that it was as if fire had leaped from them to Harry’s chest. Harry drew in his breath sharply and managed to say, “Thank you for coming, Tom.” Behind him, he heard the quiet hum of the pattern pick up, and the runes began to shimmer. So did the Pensieves.

Tom stared at the pattern, then at him. “It doesn’t look as though you’re actually planning to talk to me, Harry,” he said. “What is this? A ritual to chain me and force me to behave the way you want me to?” But he didn’t move back to the fireplace as Harry thought he would have done if he really suspected a trap. He didn’t move at all, in fact. He remained still and kept studying every single inch of Harry with those fiery eyes.

Harry managed a strained smile. “I know you know more about runes than that. Do they _look_ like runes of imprisonment?”

“No,” Tom said, a breath softer than water.

Harry nodded as he watched the steel stars around the Pensieves begin to dance with soft, shimmering green light, exactly as they were supposed to be. “You deserve to know the truth, Tom. I hope it’ll comfort you. Even if you had been the gentlest person in the world, I couldn’t have been with you.”

“Why?”

The word flew out like the slash of a blade, but Harry didn’t flinch. He did deserve that, after all. “Because I’m from a different time. The future.”

True astonishment was a foreign look on Tom’s features. His eyes darted back to the pattern, then to Harry. “You’re not lying. I’m a strong enough Legilimens to sense if you were.”

“I know.” Harry stepped back as he heard the hum of the pattern behind him become a song. It would last until all the blood dried. He released the Preservation Charms on the fires, the bowls of water, the Pensieves, and they sparked to life. Behind him, he knew, a shimmering golden portal would be forming.

“In the future,” Harry told Tom, “you were a sadistic monster called Lord Voldemort. You’d made five Horcruxes, and then you heard a prophecy that a child could supposedly defeat you. I fit the conditions of the prophecy.” He took a deep breath, and the song behind him became more complex and musical, and the lights shimmered like a corona around the sun. “You attacked me with the Killing Curse. Thanks to my mother’s love, I survived, and the curse bounced back at you and disintegrated your body. But your soul was unstable enough that a piece also became lodged in my body, making me your sixth, unintentional Horcrux.”

He swept his fringe back to show his scar. Tom’s eyes were huge, and he was motionless.

“I grew up with my Muggle aunt and uncle and didn’t know anything about people calling me the Boy-Who-Lived or about you until I entered Hogwarts. I Sorted Gryffindor—” Tom’s lips twitched in something that might have been satisfaction “—and ended up facing you down multiple times. I defeated you and the professor you possessed when you went after the Philosopher’s Stone in my first year, and in my second year I killed one of your Horcruxes. Oh, and your basilisk.”

“Harry,” Tom said, without sound. This time, Harry only knew that he’d said it because he was watching Tom’s lips.

“You were resurrected with my blood and the bone of your father and the flesh of one your servants in my fourth year. I faced you several more times, and you made a seventh Horcrux and possessed me once.” Harry was vaguely aware that he was telling the events out of order, but he was also listening to the song behind him, making sure it didn’t fall silent, and drinking in the expressions on Tom’s face.

_For the last time. The very last time._

“Then Dumbledore told me about your Horcruxes—”

“Of course he did.” Tom’s voice dipped below the song of the portal behind him, and it was easy to ignore it.

“I hunted them down, and figured out how to destroy them. But I didn’t know I was one until one of your servants, who was really a spy for Dumbledore’s side, showed me his memories. I faced you one last time in the Forbidden Forest, and you used the Killing Curse on me, but killed the soul piece instead. I faced you and defeated you then, after you were mortal. I had also gained possession of the Deathly Hallows, which included the Elder Wand. That sent me here.” Harry sighed and closed his eyes.

He hadn’t known how he would feel, after telling Tom all of that. He was surprised to realize that it felt as if stones had fallen off his shoulders.

_Huh. I suppose that I wanted someone other than Albus to know after all._

“And you’re leaving because…?” Tom asked delicately a moment later.

“Isn’t it obvious? I might already have changed things irrevocably. But if I haven’t, then my best chance is to leave now. And if I stay—I could cause you to become stronger. Or I could cause more innocent people to die.”

“I never made a Horcrux,” Tom said instantly. “I don’t intend to start. I believe this is another world, Harry. You have no need to leave.”

The song behind Harry now sounded like bells and flutes intermixed. He smiled, a little sadly. He should have known Tom would leap immediately to that possible theory, one that might be true but which Harry couldn’t be _sure_ of, and which of course was the most advantageous one for Tom.

“That could be true, but it might not. I can’t risk it.” Harry took a step backwards, towards the runic pattern and the gate that he knew was there. “Good-bye, Tom. I wish you all the best.”

“Are you happy here?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “No, I haven’t been. Given that I’ve had to lie to everyone all along—”

“ _That_ is a lie. You didn’t lie to everyone. Who have you told?”

 _Shit._ Harry winced. Then he said, “You, of course.”

“Oh, Harry.” Tom’s voice was as soft and dark as soot. But he still didn’t move away from the fireplace. That part was puzzling Harry, since he’d have thought Tom was as eager as possible to cut him off from the design that would take him home. “Don’t I deserve the truth? You brought me this far. You confessed all sorts of aspects that you could have kept silent. You could have pretended that I was a monster but you never fought me, and you didn’t have to tell me you were my prophesied enemy. Come. Tell me now.”

“If it only affected my safety, I would. But it affects others. I told you, Tom. I won’t stand by while you kill people.”

“Stay with me, and I shall kill only in self-defense and your defense.”

Harry sighed. “That’s not something you can promise. And I don’t want you to kill in my defense.” He glanced over his shoulder. He didn’t think that it was his imagination that the green and golden arch behind him had lowered a bit, giving him less room to walk under it. He had to go.

“I can promise anything, _be_ anything, for you.”

Harry turned back to Tom. And stopped.

Tom was on his knees.

He stared up at Harry, his eyes full of dark fire again. But this time, Harry thought, his mind clicking along in shock, it was the fire of immolating sacrifice. He would burn himself up for Harry. He would—

He spread his hands again, displaying that he had no weapon, and bowed his head a little, but not enough to break his eye contact with Harry. His voice sighed and whispered and hissed.

“I have done this for no one else, Harry. _Why would I do it for anyone but you?_ I have made myself weak and defenseless for no one else. You are the only chance I have, the only hope that I might have some level of feeling that everyone else I have met does. _I decided when I was a child that I was a freak who would never be loved like the other children were, and I would make that difference a source of strength._ But then I found you, and I found that you could make me the same as others without diminishing my strength. There is no one like you.” Tom swallowed.

Harry knew he should move his foot backwards. _Knew_ it. The song behind him was softer than Tom’s voice, and that was a bad sign.

But he couldn’t.

In Parseltongue, Tom spoke.

“ _I love you_.”

And he lifted his head again, and his eyes had gone so deep and dark that Harry could fall into them like tunnels.

Or roads. He knew where those roads would lead Tom if he left now. He could see it more clearly than he could some of the memories of his future he had put in Pensieves. Tom would gutter out. Maybe he would become the hateful, broken-souled monster Lord Voldemort, maybe he wouldn’t, but either way, his fire would be gone.

It was a sacrifice as profound, that giving-up of himself, as Harry walking to his death in the Forbidden Forest.

And Harry broke.

He stepped forwards and reached out. Tom stared up at him, silent, still, as though a statue had replaced him for a moment. A statue with his living eyes.

Harry’s hands touched his.

Tom swept to his feet in an instant, and swept Harry close to him, his arms locked around Harry’s waist, his lips fastened on his. Harry opened his mouth and welcomed him in, his hands steady on Tom’s arms. The thrusting tongue touching his warmed him less than the flames spring back to life in Tom’s eyes.

Tom drew back and whispered, “You truly choose me? You don’t pity me?”

Harry tried to speak, found his throat and heart too full, and had to swallow. He shook his head. “I could make that sacrifice myself,” he said. “I can’t ask you to do it.” He slid his hand down Tom’s cheek, feeling that clutch tighten on his waist, and he added softly, in Parseltongue, “ _I love you, and I can’t do it._ ”

Tom reached up with trembling fingers and traced the corners of his eyelids. Harry shut his eyes and leaned towards him. His wand was somewhere up his sleeve, but he didn’t touch it. He was shaking himself, but he trusted Tom not to injure him. Not to touch him in any way that hurt.

The song was a whisper now. Harry looked up at last and found the door only a small bump on the runic pattern, too small to go through.

Harry took a long, deep breath. He’d chosen love, and maybe, too, he’d chosen selfishness. But that feeling of rocks having fallen from his shoulders remained.

He had striven so hard in the last few years to make peace with the fact that he would never go back home, and that he would never be of more than incidental importance to anyone here, because that was the way he had to be to preserve the timeline. And then it had all shattered with Abraxas’s attack on Ophelia’s shop, and probably after that he never had a chance to preserve the timeline anyway.

But the main effect was that, while he would always love Ron and Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys and some other friends in his future, he had also given up on seeing them again. When the chance finally came, it didn’t feel real to him. He couldn’t even remember their faces that well.

Not compared to the faces of the people here, who stood in front of him and could touch him and love him.

 _Ron, Hermione, I hope you’d forgive me._ But that was something he would never know, and would have to live with.

It was much, much easier to think of living with that than it was to think of making his family think he had died in a car accident, or even disappointing Parkinson.

And compared to the prospect of disappointing Tom, whether he would have hurt Ron and Hermione’s feelings was of no consequence at all.

He opened his eyes. Tom was leaning towards him, so close that his eyes were nearly all Harry could see.

“We’re going home,” Tom told him.

“I highly doubt that, Tom.”

Harry whirled around, shielding Tom with his body. The last whispers of the glow died out of the runic pattern, and Albus emerged from behind his Disillusionment Charm, shaking his head.

“I thought you would make the right choice, Harry. But I knew there was a slight chance you might not. That is the main reason I wanted to be here.” His eyes were weary as he looked between Harry and Tom. “I barely turned away from Gellert in time, and he damaged enough of the world as it was. I cannot let you make the same mistake.”

“I’m not going to,” Harry said steadily. “I believed Tom when he knelt to me.” He wasn’t about to reveal that Tom had confessed his love in Parseltongue. “He can change, and he will. He won’t become the creature he was in my future.”

“Of course I won’t,” Tom said, and his arms tightened with the same kind of speed that he’d shown when he thought Harry was looking too long at Evan Rosier. “I have Harry at my side. He never did.”

“There is still too much chance that this is the same world as the one you came from, and you will alter things too much.” Albus pointed his wand at Harry. “Please step out of the way, Harry. I am only going to _Obliviate_ Mr. Riddle, not hurt him. Then I will help you construct the pattern again, and you can be on your way.”

“No,” Harry said. “I made my choice. I choose Tom. I choose my family. I choose to stay here, and become the kind of person that I’ve already started becoming.”

“That is a selfish decision, Harry.”

Harry considered Albus, and the air of tiredness that hung about him, as if he didn’t want to cast the Memory Charm on Tom at all, but knew he had to. “Maybe it is,” Harry said at last. “But I’ll be happier that way than if I made the decision you did. And I’ve bloody earned the right to be selfish.”

Tom drew a long, long breath of delight behind him.

Albus shut his eyes. “Then I must—”

“ _Expelliarmus_!” Harry yelled, slashing his wand down as it slid into his hand, and Albus’s wand soared across the pattern to land in his free palm.

It might have been the Elder Wand. Harry didn’t know; he didn’t look at it. He concentrated on the feeling of Tom’s arms wrapped around him and the way that Albus’s eyes were widening, but he hadn’t moved, as Harry aimed the captured wand at him.

“ _Obliviate_ ,” Harry said, tenderly.

*

“Abraxas. Leave us.”

Abraxas had met them when they came back to Malfoy Manor, nearly babbling in relief about seeing Harry back at his lord’s side, and how wonderful it was that they’d come to terms with whatever had separated them, and how he was glad that Harry had decided to accept his place in the ranks of the Knights of Walpurgis, and—

But he stopped speaking immediately the minute Tom said those words. Harry doubted he could see the expression on Tom’s face; they were standing so that Harry was the one who faced the door, while Tom faced him. But Abraxas could understand tones perfectly well.

“Yes, my lord,” Abraxas said, and bowed low, and shot Harry one more smile, while mouthing, “Welcome home.” Then he shut the door and left them alone.

Tom was staring at him, a slight tremble easing up his arms. He hadn’t touched Harry since they’d come back through the fireplace, although he stood now with his fingers only a centimeter or two from his skin. His gaze wouldn’t leave Harry’s. He didn’t blink.

“I’m here,” Harry said.

The words snapped Tom’s control.

In a moment, Harry was on his back in the bed, and he knew from the way that Tom was ripping at his clothes with hands that barely functioned that this was it, this was the last moment. Tom hadn’t even gone for his wand. For the first time, Harry genuinely wasn’t sure where it was.

It didn’t matter. Harry waved his own wand—he’d left Dumbledore’s behind for him—lazily over them and thought the necessary spell. The clothes were gone in instants, and Tom stared down and his hands slid smoothly over Harry’s skin, his mouth lowering so that his lips parted and he placed his tongue gently over an old scar.

“I’m here,” Harry said. “And I’m yours.” He touched the shell of Tom’s ear, and traced gently around it, the way Tom had around his eyes.

Tom nodded, shut his eyes, and moved slowly down Harry’s body. Harry propped himself up on the pillows at his back, arms folded behind his head, and Tom glanced at him as he reached into a drawer and came up with his wand at last. “You haven’t done this before.”

“No.”

“I’ll go slowly.”

“You can go as fast as you need to, Tom, or did you forget that you’re a _wizard_?”

Tom’s smile slipped back into dangerous territory, and he didn’t take his eyes off Harry as he cast his own necessary spells, in turn. Harry had to admit they felt pretty damn weird, but he didn’t look away from Tom, either, not when Tom first touched him and not when he had two fingers in there and not when Harry said, “That’s enough,” and wriggled a little further down the bed and spread his legs.

“I’ve read this is more comfortable when you are on your stomach,” Tom murmured, seizing Harry’s hips. Once again, he was holding himself back with that steel will, and his first thrust into Harry was shallow. “But I cannot give up looking at you.”

“You’ve done research on how to make this comfortable, Tom? How sweet.”

Tom uttered a low sound of irritation, and this time his thrust was deeper. Harry laughed and reached up to grip Tom’s shoulders, wriggling himself backwards and giving a few experimental thrusts of his own. He thought that maybe if he angled to the side, or got Tom to do it, then—

 _There._ Harry gave a loud gasp as pleasure fractured his world for a second, and then said, “Keep going. Right there.”

Tom did, silent and obedient in a way Harry had never thought he could be. Harry didn’t think he’d blinked, either, and wouldn’t be surprised if he had cast a charm that meant he didn’t need to. Harry smiled at him and flicked a curl of black hair from his face when Tom bent low enough to let him do it.

“Still here,” he said, and Tom picked up the pace.

Harry retained mostly blurred impressions, which he supposed wasn’t much of a surprise when he’d prepared an extensive magical time-traveling ritual and had an intense confrontation all in the same evening. The full feeling that kept changing as Tom moved in and out, so he never really got used to it. The pleasure that curled in his belly and made him achingly hard and joined up with the happiness burning under his heart. The hands that slipped off his shoulders and sometimes grabbed his legs and sometimes his hips and sometimes his arms.

Tom’s face above him, sleek and pale and stunned.

Harry arched and came unexpectedly, clamping down as hard as he could to make Tom join in. He twisted through a hard spiral, his muscles tightening and his breath catching as his orgasm gripped him and made things stutter all through his body. Then he felt the warmth in his arse and grinned to himself, turning a little so he wasn’t directly under Tom when he crashed.

Tom gathered him in at once, as tired as he must be himself, his arms wrapped so possessively around Harry they hurt his stomach. Harry caught him in the ribs with an elbow, and Tom still paused before his grip eased. Harry rested his head beneath Tom’s chin and sighed a little as he picked up his wand and cast the cleaning charm.

It didn’t matter that he remembered so little of this particular time, not when they would have so many more.

“Harry,” Tom breathed into the back of his neck.

“I stayed for you,” Harry said, arching his neck back so that he was looking into Tom’s eyes. “And for Dorea and Tristan and the rest of the Potters, and someone in my Auror training classes, and even Malfoy and Rosier, pricks that they are.”

“Should I be jealous?”

Harry snorted. “At least you’re asking this time. No. They’re content to see me where I am.” He twisted harder into Tom, rolling around and around until he got more comfortable. “But it was mostly for you.”

Tom said nothing, but his hand raised and traced around the corners of Harry’s eyelids again.

“ _I’m yours_ ,” he hissed in Parseltongue.

Harry smiled. Then he waited, because it seemed as if there should be more, but only soft breathing stroked his ear. Harry managed to cock his head to the side and saw why.

Tom was asleep.

Harry smiled and curled up again, closing his own eyes. He imagined Dorea’s face, which he would see again, and Parkinson’s smug smile when he showed up again, and even the way Malfoy and Rosier would nod at him when he and Tom walked into the next meeting of the Knights of Walpurgis, side by side.

_I will have to do some work. I have to change some things._

But mostly, he imagined Tom, and the time that would now flow on with both of them in it, and the image wrapped around him and drew him down into dreams of the future.

**The End.**


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